Canadian Outpost Enjoys Simple Life Island Gets Autonomy After Four Decades

March 15, 1992|By CLYDE H. FARNSWORTH, The New York Times

TORONTO -- They are a hearty people, like Elizabeth Amer, a third-generation islander, who came off a ferry from the mainland trundling a ``bundle buggy`` with food and supplies for herself, her three cats and her dog.

Amer, whose living-room window frames the sleek, silvery skyscrapers of downtown Toronto a mile across the water, is one of 650 residents of a sickle- shaped slice of land known as the Island.

Although only 12 minutes by ferry to the mainland, this wind-lashed metropolitan outpost retains some of the character of simpler times, when it was the camping ground for Mississauga Indians hunting deer in what is now the Bay Street financial district.

There are no cars, restaurants, stores, coin laundries or movie theaters.

The 650 residents, who live in 250 weatherbeaten wooden cottages along the eastern shores, instead have thick black willow trees, big skies, open water and the company of at least one red fox and thousands of geese and ducks.

To Amer, a second-term member of the Toronto city council who once edited an island newsletter called Goose and Duck, these are the qualities that make the place magical and ``pretty close to heaven.``

Her grandmother, Elizabeth Coleman, a 50-year resident, celebrated family Christmas on the Island 20 years ago at age 100.

A neighbor and friend, Sarah Miller, who bikes to her job on the mainland as coordinator for the Canadian Environmental Law Association, calls the way of life ``a lot saner than the rat race across the water.``

Another neighbor and friend, Barbara Klunder, a painter and designer, said, ``We`re a small, mutually supportive community in the woods, and sometimes we just think of ourselves as a bunch of elves.``

These days the elves are merrier than they have been in a long, long while.

After a four-decade struggle against sheriff`s writs, eviction notices and demolition teams, they have won the right to continue living on their little bit of paradise.

Shortly before Christmas the Ontario provincial government announced that residents would be permitted to buy a 99-year lease on their homes from a newly created island land trust controlled by the community.

Toronto will collect about $12 million from the sale of the leases, and the province replaces the city as the landlord.